Masterclass: Proving the Value of Content
Written by Richard Towey on 8 minute read
Here’s how Penske Media titles such as Rolling Stone and Variety won last-click advertisers around to upper-funnel investments.
Beating the drum for upper-funnel awareness and engagement in sales-driven environments. Even for major publishing houses as big as Penske Media, it’s not easy.
Home to a number of iconic brands (Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, to name a few) the mass media publisher has been on a journey to champion the role of content on an affiliate program.
In our recent episode of Awin-Win Marketing Podcast, Scott Ginsberg, Vice President of Performance Marketing at Penske Media, and Jim Harriman, VP of Media Sales & Services at product discovery platform StackCommerce, elaborated on their revision of Penske’s advertiser proposals and measurement framework to demonstrate content’s unique value.
It’s a topical point of discussion in light of Penske taking Google to court over its scraping of content for AI overviews, therefore threatening the publisher’s business model by reducing the amount of traffic sent to sites like Rolling Stone.
If you’re interested in learning more about that business model, or extracting more ROI from content and learning how it can benefit your affiliate program, check out the full episode or read our commentary below.
From coupon to 1:1: challenges when flying the flag for content
When advertisers stay loyal to last-click remuneration, they’re conditioned to expect sale-impacting returns from their affiliates. It’s therefore up to people like Scott Ginsberg to prove how content and upper-funnel activities produce wider and much longer-lasting outcomes, with the caveat of a lower initial ROI.
Scott: “When we do a media buy and a brand is used to working with last click, they might be expecting a 7:1 return on ad spend (ROAS)... What we need to do is not only sell them and educate them on why content or upper funnel makes sense, but also why they should invest that dollar that they could earn seven on, maybe to just earn a dollar on?”
Time and time again, prior to its breakthrough partnership with StackCommerce, Penske Media found that while advertisers loved the idea of featuring in titles like Rolling Stone and Variety, they lacked an appreciation of how content returns differently to the coupon and loyalty sites on their program.
From Jim Harriman’s perspective, the issue often doesn’t lie with the affiliate manager, but rather the decision maker operating a step above them. If budget is allocated to an affiliate program, revenue is expected to come back.
Jim: “Even advertisers know that the affiliate channel isn't just a lower-funnel channel, but within organizations, there's still this struggle to try to elevate the conversation and get buy-in. That's an ongoing discussion and battle – just trying to secure budget and investment from brands that are so used to engaging on that last-click lower funnel customer and convincing them to feed that lower funnel with that upper-funnel activity.”
Coupon site listing or Rolling Stone feature?
It took a partnership with StackCommerce to revise Penske’s advertiser proposals and measurement framework to demonstrate content’s inherent value.
For context, StackCommerce has reinvented the traditional affiliate agency model by becoming a solution provider for content commerce opportunities. Its access to top-tier advertisers with pre-approved budgets was naturally of interest to Penske Media. However, it was Stack’s expertise and technology that really helped the publisher educate on content’s long-term value.
Jim: “It really comes down to education and building relationships within organizations up the chain… They might not see the instant return like they would with maybe coupon, deal, loyalty, or lower-funnel activity. But, over time, we can certainly show that there's a net gain if they consistently engage with publishers like Penske from a content perspective.”
Scott: “I think you have to understand that the consumer's interacting with a lot of different things throughout the day. So it's really just understanding ‘How are they interacting?’”
Brands are often bowled over by featuring on Rolling Stone, more so than hearing about a sales update from a coupon site, according to Jim. It’s then about tracking assists to paint the full picture.
Scott: “Did that consumer buy instantly? Maybe or maybe not. But we do know that by them reading it [a placement], they might have gone to their local store. They might have actually clicked on a different affiliate link. At the end of the day, that experience did help to ultimately influence that consumer to take the action the brand wanted.”
Interested in viewing assists and rewarding publishers for their influence on the purchase journey? Click here to learn more about setting up a Payment on Assist model on your Awin program.
How to increase investments in affiliate content
Success within performance marketing is measured differently from brand to brand. At the start of their partnership, Penske and StackCommerce worked closely with each advertiser to pinpoint specific benchmarks and define a positive contribution.
Fundamentals like paid and organic user impressions and clicks were accounted for, right down to views of a brand reference within an article. Once these were outlined, StackCommerce helped Penske layer in assist tracking to measure the influence of content on sales made directly with a brand or another publisher.
Jim: “From there, what we can do is start optimizing the content and the landing pages and the elements on the page to try to improve those metrics and increase that downstream conversion. We can even ultimately see where the customer converted, whether it was direct, with SEM, SEO, or even another publisher. And we can start to say, ‘Hey, there's some commonalities with what we're doing where the majority of our content ultimately converts through search or ultimately converts through publisher X. Let's try to optimize that.’”
Measuring assists resulted in a complete turnaround at one large-scale electronics retailer, which was initially hesitant to invest in content due to a perceived lack of return. Relevantly, though, it had a problem with engaging consumers who weren’t ready to buy – the type of challenge content could solve.
Jim: “What we had done with Penske Media and Scott was kind of devise a long-term strategy over the course of the year, involving a number of different content plays and traffic drivers designed to get eyes on to that content that was developed and set up a proper tracking methodology that would allow this team internally to measure the impact of that content even further down the funnel through attribution modeling and things of that nature.”
In doing so, Penske turned an advertiser that was hesitant to invest even $5,000 in a content play into one of the largest spenders StackCommerce has ever seen.
Scott: “I think the other benefit for that retailer is not only did they get more efficiency, but also, they had some pretty big competitors and linking away from Amazon was a big KPI for them… I know getting that market share back and owning the consumer ended up being something that they still really value.”
Building a case for the assist model
Assist tracking might help publishers like Penske prove their influence in the hardest of terms, but how do brands react to paying for a second tier of partner contributions?
Scott: “This [assist tracking] actually helped us with that electronics retailer a couple of years back, where we were looking at about a 1:1 ROAS and trying to secure the renewal. Honestly, once we started to look at assist metrics, it ended up being, I think, north of 20%. It really showcased that if content's doing its job, it's educating, it's influencing, but ultimately there may be another party that converted that consumer. A savvy consumer knows to look for that deal… I think our big win is still gaining some credit and still being able to demonstrate what we were able to influence above and beyond what that direct attribution was able to give us.”
That shift in perspective highlights how crucial it is to measure value beyond the final step in what can be a long customer journey. By recognizing the influence of assists and content, marketers can reframe their perception of affiliate partnerships. As Jim rightly points out, success often depends on entering the channel with fresh eyes.
Jim: “Don't go in with preconceived notions of what the affiliate channel is. Enter the affiliate world as if there are multiple channels within. If you're open-minded and willing to invest the time and money, you can use the affiliate channel to achieve goals that you just didn't think were possible.”
For masterclasses on topics including affiliate tracking, measurable influencer marketing, and generating cost-effective PR, check more episodes of Awin-Win Marketing Podcast.
